Anne Arundel County officials have revoked the grading permit they issued earlier this summer to allow Browning-Ferris Industries to reseal its leaking hazardous waste landfill on Solley Road.The action throws into question whether the waste-hauling company can obtain a new county permit -- and fend off a likely challenge -- in time to begin work this fall.Environmental protections at the site are failing, and cancer-causing chemicals have permeated ground water that is moving north and west toward Marley Creek.

Anne Arundel County has halted construction at the site of what could be the state's largest and most lucrative slots parlor, after opponents of the project filed a new challenge that could delay work for up to 45 days. Baltimore-based Cordish Cos.' plan to open a $1 billion casino and entertainment complex at Arundel Mills mall has already been challenged over traffic concerns. The latest appeal suspends the company's permit to prepare the site for construction. Harry A. Blumenthal, an attorney for the Villages of Dorchester Homeowners Association and three residents of the community of homes near the mall, filed the appeal late Wednesday afternoon, and the county issued a stop-work order the next day. Blumenthal said he did not intend to stop work at the site, but wants to make sure that neighbors are satisfied with the company's plans to handle traffic.

A Curtis Bay animal rendering plant inched closer this week to securing the permits it needs to rebuild, angering residents who say they can't bear to go back to the days when putrid smells from the plant permeated the air. The Anne Arundel County Board of Appeals' vote Monday granting Valley Proteins a grading permit is one of several steps needed to rebuild a portion of the plant that a fire destroyed last year. Before the fire, Valley Proteins' cooker rendered animal carcasses into livestock feed and other products.

County officials issued a stop work order on a sewer line at the future site of an upscale Towson development after discovering earlier this week that work was being done without a required grading permit. The sewer runs from the construction site of The Quarters, a $170 million condominium and apartment complex at the intersection of Dulaney Valley Road and Fairmount Avenue. A nearby resident alerted county officials after observing that a number of trees had been cut down Tuesday. After determining that a grading permit had not yet been issued, the county told the subcontractors to stop cutting down trees, said Tom Vidmar, the deputy director of the county's Department of Environmental Protection and Resource Management.

Construction on an elementary school in Mount Airy could be delayed because town officials refuse to sign a required grading permit until county leaders promise to make road improvements around the planned school site. County officials say they have agreed to consider those improvements but are waiting for the Town Council to provide a specific wish list. School officials say they're stuck - unable to give the Town Council what it wants and unable to begin building a facility that Mount Airy desperately needs.

County Executive Janet S. Owens ordered construction to resume on a controversial road extension after the Board of Appeals threw out a challenge by the project's opponents. By a 4-2 vote, the board held Monday night that opponents waited too long to contest a grading permit for a $6.8 million, half-mile extension of Admiral Cochrane Drive outside Annapolis. The county says the extension will reduce traffic by linking busy Riva Road and Route 2. But nearby residents say it will damage the environment and spur excessive development.

A 4,000-year-old Pasadena "mountain" that once was a vital part of Indian society may explain how the community got its name. And county officials are determined to preserve it.Pasadena's "Wishing Rock" is a 50-foot mound of quartzite, a geological oddity along the coastal plane and an important archaeological site within a couple of hundred feet of Ritchie Highway.Used this century as an illegal strip-mine, a site for stripping cars, a teen-age hangout and a track for all-terrain vehicles, almost half of Wishing Rock, also known as "Rock Hill" has been mined or eroded away during the last 50 years.

IMPROVISING IS a much admired quality in jazz, but making up the rules as one goes along is hardly appropriate for government.Carroll County government's granting of a grading permit to developer Martin K. P. Hill for his new project in Hampstead without the town's approval is unprecedented. It is a violation of the county's own ordinance as well as a slap at all eight of Carroll's incorporated towns.On Dec. 18, the county issued Mr. Hill a grading permit for the 90-unit Roberts Field condominium community without Hampstead's approval.

The Maryland attorney general's office has accused a Harwood club of working on its property last year without filing a sediment control plan with Anne Arundel County government, the state announced yesterday. A criminal information was filed Feb. 27 in Anne Arundel Circuit Court against Three Rivers Sportsmen Inc. If convicted, the club could be punished by a fine of up to $5,000. There was no answer at the club's telephone yesterday. Betty Dixon, a spokeswoman for the county's land-use office, said yesterday that county officials cited the club last year for grading without a permit and filling in a floodplain on its 20-acre property.

A Curtis Bay animal rendering plant inched closer this week to securing the permits it needs to rebuild, angering residents who say they can't bear to go back to the days when putrid smells from the plant permeated the air. The Anne Arundel County Board of Appeals' vote Monday granting Valley Proteins a grading permit is one of several steps needed to rebuild a portion of the plant that a fire destroyed last year. Before the fire, Valley Proteins' cooker rendered animal carcasses into livestock feed and other products.

A Curtis Bay animal rendering plant inched closer this week to securing the permits it needs to rebuild, angering residents who say they can't bear to go back to the days when putrid smells from the plant permeated the air. The Anne Arundel County Board of Appeals' vote Monday granting Valley Proteins a grading permit is one of several steps needed to rebuild a portion of the plant that a fire destroyed last year. Before the fire, Valley Proteins' cooker rendered animal carcasses into livestock feed and other products.

Work on Parr's Ridge Elementary, Carroll's newest school project, will begin this week as scheduled after county and Mount Airy officials reached an agreement yesterday on road improvements the town considered so crucial that it threatened to withhold a grading permit. Concerned with traffic problems at a dangerous intersection, the town insisted on road improvements. None of the agencies involved wanted the much-needed school delayed, but the school board could not approve construction bids without an authorized grading permit.

Construction on an elementary school in Mount Airy could be delayed because town officials refuse to sign a required grading permit until county leaders promise to make road improvements around the planned school site. County officials say they have agreed to consider those improvements but are waiting for the Town Council to provide a specific wish list. School officials say they're stuck - unable to give the Town Council what it wants and unable to begin building a facility that Mount Airy desperately needs.

Teen-age motocross star Travis Pastrana's practice course has again drawn the scrutiny of county authorities, who have charged his father with illegally clearing trees to blaze dirt bike trails through a wooded Davidsonville property. Inspectors have ordered Robert L. Pastrana to stop grading at the site, which is owned by his 18-year-old daredevil son, records show. That order was issued less than a year after they took the same action upon discovering that the family had failed to obtain permits before building a network of trails in the woods about five miles southwest of Annapolis.

The continuing battle between Carroll County and the Town (( of Hampstead over a grading permit for a proposed condominium development spilled over into a quarterly mayors' meeting yesterday in Westminster.Hampstead Mayor Christopher M. Nevin criticized county officials for issuing the permit Monday to developer Martin K. P. Hill for a 90-unit project in the Roberts Field subdivision.Town officials have said for weeks that the permit should not be granted because of what its engineering consultants say are violations of Hampstead's open space and density requirements.

Work on Parr's Ridge Elementary, Carroll's newest school project, will begin this week as scheduled after county and Mount Airy officials reached an agreement yesterday on road improvements the town considered so crucial that it threatened to withhold a grading permit. Concerned with traffic problems at a dangerous intersection, the town insisted on road improvements. None of the agencies involved wanted the much-needed school delayed, but the school board could not approve construction bids without an authorized grading permit.

The battle over a proposed Safeway supermarket and strip mall in Deale enters a new phase today with Anne Arundel County expected to issue a key permit and opponents vowing to file an immediate appeal to keep bulldozers idle. Protesters plan to picket the South County site during a 10 a.m. preconstruction meeting between Safeway representatives and county officials. The county has told opponents it will issue a grading permit that would allow Safeway to begin clearing the wooded 16-acre site.